One of our most common arguments between my dad and me was the type of wheels we where going to fit to our beautiful sports car. GBS offer a range of team dynamics Motorsport wheels in silver grey and black. These wheels are 10 to 12 spoke 15 inch wheels and are fitted to quite a lot of the zeros we have seen. I quite like the look of them however my dad didn't. He was adamant that he wanted some old school 5 spoke rounded edged wheels, nothing else would do.
We couldn't find any new wheels that suited the style we where looking at so we started searching the second hand market. Some wheels that really stood out where the tsw stealths. They looked very similar to the wheels he was after for his Z3.
The problem was the Z3 wheels where 5 stud and our Sierra hubs are only 4. We would have to find some wheels that had 4 studs and a spacing of 108mm between each hole in the style we where after. I racked my brain and remembered that the mk5 escort cossy had some really nice 5 spoke smooth alloys. Lucky I was correct and the stud spacing was correct for our setup. There where 3 different types of wheel size and look.
The first where the 15 inch ronal wheels from the mk6 (mk5 facelift) escort gti
The second where the 16 inch deep dished alloys from the cossy
The third was the 16 inch from the mk2 mondeo zetec s
The idea would be to find a beat up set from either the reckless or ebay and get them refurbished. I ended up buying a set of 16s from ebay off an old scrapped mondeo. After getting these home I found that they were very large, especially with the chunky tires they came with.
Because we didn't want to fit super slick tires to the car we decided to sell these wheels on and look for some more.
The final wheels we found where from the GTI. These fit nice and the wheel to tire ratio was better. They had some deep curb marks and bubbling paint so I was quite worried after the refurb they would still be visible.
I was wrong, the chap at Danum wheel refurbishment did an absolute stunning job. The wheels came out looking brand spanking new. Not a mark in sight.
The next job was to find some new tyres to fit on these beauties. We asked and searched around to see what suited us the best. The car would be used mainly on the road and for the odd track day. We picked up some Yokohama para 2s for 60something pounds a tyre.
He only thing left to do now is the spray the center caps up and get them fitted
UPDATE!!!
Disaster! After all this time and effort there as one thing that we didn't consider and found out when it came to fit them…… the ET.
These wheels had an offset of ET40 which is fine for a standard sierra hubs because I looked it up. For the wheels to fit correctly on the zero they had to be ET15, slightly annoyed about this perhaps if a manual was available this could have been easily avoided.
Moving on though we kept the tires and are still looking for a decent set of wheels.
UPDATE!!!
Disaster! After all this time and effort there as one thing that we didn't consider and found out when it came to fit them…… the ET.
These wheels had an offset of ET40 which is fine for a standard sierra hubs because I looked it up. For the wheels to fit correctly on the zero they had to be ET15, slightly annoyed about this perhaps if a manual was available this could have been easily avoided.
Moving on though we kept the tires and are still looking for a decent set of wheels.
